Welcome to week two of Annenberg Youth Academy, where we dive deep into important topics such as the music industry, mental health, the role of civic engagement, and the incarceration of Japanese Americans after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. Let’s talk about it!
Earlier this week, we discussed how the hip hop industry has romanticized hip hop culture and how artists and the public listen and create hip hop more for the hype instead of using it as an outlet for civic engagement and a way to spread awareness to serious issues in our community. For example, Childish Gamino’s music video “This Is America” showcases him dancing and laughing and having a good time, while his backgrounds demonstrate gun violence and police brutality among the black community. He uses these two contradicting views of hip hop to show the irony of today’s pop culture in wanting to create music for the money and partying, while neglecting the real reason we began telling stories through hip hop in the first place.
It’s honestly just really disappointing to witness the inspirational artists of an earlier generation, such as Lauryn Hill and Tupac, go out of style… meanwhile these newer hip hop artists are singing about the money and the fame. Let’s not forget where we came from people!
Moving on, this week we were given a creative writing assignment where we had to create a podcast based on a social issue of our choice. I focused mine on mental health in teens and college students. My podcast described why mental health is so important, especially in youth, and how we can prioritize it. According to the WHO, our mental well-being shapes our ability to make decisions, build relationships and shape the world we live in. Mental health is a basic human right. In 2021, the National College Health Assessment from the American College Health Association uncovered that nearly 75% of students reported psychological distress, both moderate and severe. Much of this stress is due to coursework, relationships, adjustment to campus life, economic strain, social injustice, mass violence, and loss related to COVID-19. Civic engagement starts with us. We must acknowledge that mental health is in fact a real thing and that it is ok to ask for help. We must raise awareness to the importance of mental well-being amongst every individual. Fortunately, even today many institutions nationwide are embracing the importance and knowledge of wellness into campus life such as through group therapy, peer counseling, and telehealth. Many staff and faculty are now being addressed and trained on the issue so that they can support students in distress. Coping mechanisms are also a huge way to de-stress. How do you cope when faced with a stressful situation?
Our second week at Annenberg Youth Academy ended with a field trip to the Japanese-American National Museum. The museum featured a real barracks that the Japanese-Americans were forced to live in when they were forcefully removed from their homes and incarcerated. These 20 by 120 feet barracks were divided into four to six tiny spaces for multiple families. These barracks not only excluded them from privacy, but it provided for poor living conditions, as there was no heating, and the wood was not very waterproof. One of the biggest things that caught my eye during the tour was a documentary that we watched on the comparison of Executive Order 9066 and 9/11. Did you know that they detained so many American citizens in the Islamic community for no reason after the terrorist attacks of 9/11? Hmm… it’s almost as if we didn’t learn from our history the first time! And people always talk about how we should all just “move on”, which is total B.S because look at where that has gotten us… absolutely nowhere! Those same mistakes will keep repeating themselves over and over again if we don’t address the real issues in our government and spread awareness of our history. If we’re so ashamed of our past, we can at least take responsibility in preventing it from happening again. For example, did you know that there was a report called the Munson Report where the U.S government sent FBI agent Curtis Munson to spy on the Japanese-Americans in the West Coast to determine their loyalty to America? Before I elaborate on my point, let me just make it clear that it was in no way ethical for the U.S to question the loyalty of its own citizens simply based on their ethnic identity in the first place. To make matters worse, when Munson’s report stated that the Japanese-Americans were in fact loyal, guess what our government did? It hid this information from the public and the Japanese-Americans were still forced to evacuate for their “protection”. Like I said, B.S.So what do you think? With all this talk about the ban of ethnic studies courses, do you think our government is failing us by withholding our history? And if so, how can we use civic engagement as an outlet to address these social issues? Perhaps through hip hop? I think that if we can first acknowledge all of these social issues and come together in our community, we can all fight for a common cause that creates a better and more inclusive society for the next generation.
Communicating Change 